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Most people say they want to grow, and I believe they mean it. But here’s the uncomfortable truth: what a lot of us actually want is to grow and feel good the whole time. Growth almost never works that way — and I found that out the hard way in a meeting I thought I was helping.

The feedback I didn’t want to hear

Our team was mapping out sales strategies — my world for years. As people shared ideas, I recognized a few approaches I’d already tried, and I knew a path I believed worked better. So I jumped in, redirected the group, and told them to go my way instead. After the meeting, another leader pulled me aside and said something that didn’t sit easily: “Your idea might get slightly better results, but shutting down something they worked hard on might cost you more than you gain.”

My first reaction was resistance. In my mind, I was helping. But the longer I sat with it, the more it landed. My team was most engaged not when I handed them the answer, but when they built the solution themselves. I hadn’t helped — I’d quietly taken their ownership away. So I went back and owned it. The lesson underneath has stuck with me ever since: if you only listen to voices that protect you, you’ll never hear the ones that grow you.

Validation protects your feelings. Truth improves your performance.

You can protect your ego, or you can improve your performance — you don’t get both. Most people don’t struggle for lack of effort. They struggle for lack of awareness. And we all have blind spots that feel justified, which is exactly what makes them blind spots. Left unchecked, they harden into patterns, and patterns become limitations. That’s why other people matter so much: someone looking from a different angle can hand you in one honest conversation what might’ve taken you years to see alone.

If you lead a team, this gets magnified — the way you receive truth sets whether anyone around you will ever tell you it. I write more about that side of it over at chrissund.com.